


the quiet of love

by softestpink



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Falling In Love, Holding Hands, The Romance- It Jumps Out, Winterfell Tourism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 23:37:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpink/pseuds/softestpink
Summary: When they kiss, she feels the same twist in her heart that she did the last time. It seems impatient to unite with him- to literally jump out of her chest and into his. It would be safe there, she thinks.I am with you, she wants to say. We are real.





	the quiet of love

**Author's Note:**

> yes i am still working on chapters of other stuff. until that drops... may i offer you this pairing only i care about in this trying time?

 

Missandei likes to watch his hands sometimes, likes their dry firmness. They are not beautiful. They are not soft. Grey Worm's hands are slave's hands and Missandei remains slightly horrified at her own admiration. Is it a damning thing, she wonders, to crave the touch of a person that has strangled men and tossed children into the river?

She has no illusions about the lives he has taken. The lives he will take. 

 

She looks at her own hands and thinks that the softness of them is also deceptive. She's lived no privileged life. Her feet would tell a different story. Good Master Krasnys would often bid her to stand for days on end when she was younger, so as to not embarrass him by swaying in front of guests in the longer meetings. Missandei's hands curl into tight fists and that reminds her of Grey Worm, too. Grey Worm, whose hands have never been his own until now. Good Master Krasnys did many things to the both of them. 

 

Grey Worm watches her, in the river. He is bathing with the other Unsullied and quite a few of the Second Sons while all who are not warriors take the chance to wash linens and sandals. There are so many others bare around him, but he watches her. He tries and averts his eyes when she covers herself, but it is too late. Later, when he comes to apologize, Missandei watches the curl of his fists and finds them distracting.

'Why did you look away?' she wants to ask. 'Why did you look at all?' she wants to know. But his words thumb at her memory and make her pause- 

 

"I don't remember teaching you the word 'precious'." she certainly would know. 

 

She later wonders why Ser Jorah would have cause to teach him that. 

 

Precious.  

 

"I would never meet Missandei from the island of Naath.", he'd said. As if she'd become a marked part of him. The idea stays in her mind as she rinses the queen's hair that night. Her majesty speaks of possible rebellion, of slave-masters counterattacking and other worries for the future and Missandei know it is a punishable offense but she only half-listens. She is still thinking of Grey Worm's words. 

 

At night Missandei lies on her small bed and holds her own hand, like a secret- like a lover would. 

 

She rests them both on her chest, lets her knuckles graze against the hollow of her own neck and thinks about the water dripping over his eyelashes, the awed set of his mouth. She knows what a man who wants her looks like. She especially knows what a man who doesn't respect her looks like. Grey Worm is only one of those things. 

 

She remembers when they had first begun their lessons, the way he had reached for her hand after hearing of her kidnapping. Grey Worm is compassionate, something she'd realized even before today's apology. Beneath that armor, beneath that stone face, he cares for the suffering of others. He cares for her. 

 

He shouldn’t- after everything. Missandei thinks she would break if she was ever forced to take on even half of the tasks the masters would give the Unsullied. Still. He cares.

 

Her abdomen feels strange about at that and Missandei, alone in her bed, imagines Grey Worm lying next to her, looking at her like he did in the river. Like she is... precious.

 

After the bathing incident, the queen takes to asking after Grey Worm as if Missandei sleeps at his bedside and wakes only to follow him around and chase after his every word. The first time Missandei quite literally doesn't respond at all until she realizes the queen is looking at her after asking "and how is our chief commander?" 

 

Should she know this? Missandei can't restrain her confused frown when she answers politely that 'he is fine, your grace'. For all she knows, he is.  

 

"Good." is all the queen says with a small, fleeting smile. She moves on with her council meeting, but Missandei stays preoccupied with the odd question for hours after that. Perhaps her answering at all was a mistake, she thinks, after it has been nearly a week and the fourth soldier has approached her in the morning to politely request after Grey Worm. She is mortified. Surely Grey Worm will find this an interruption in his life- to have her forced into the role of his representative when she has only been helping him learn the common tongue. The last soldier even tries to leave a message with her, something about the barracks storage needing his approval.

 

Missandei is uncharacteristically flustered and it takes her a moment to gather herself. 

 

“This one desires your name.” she always speaks to the Unsullied in Low Valyrian, and always with great respect. She thinks of how the masters would speak to them like dogs or not at all. It is comfortable, the mother language they share. The soldier does not relax perceptibly, but Missandei can tell that he is pleased she will not force him to speak in the common tongue. 

 

“Brown Heel, miss.” 

 

“I will pass on your message, Brown Heel.” 

 

Missandei does nothing to dissuade the Unsullied Grey Worm commands from coming to her if they cannot find him. Even the most lax among them treat her with a respect that is a little jarring. She’s used to being ornamental- a piece to be admired in the room with the added talent of parroting useful phrases. But Grey Worm’s men listen to her and sometimes even ask for her opinion on things.They see her as a liason the queen, though Missandei balks at the thought. 

 

Grey Worm never rebukes her when she comes to talk to him about these things. If anything he seems lightly embarrassed. They haven’t spoken of the river since his apology and her declaration. Missandei is- she’s curious. She has never done this before, whatever they are doing. It’s clear that Grey Worm hasn’t either. He’s used to wearing a helmet that blocks off most of his expressions and Missandei reads apprehension in the flick of his eyes sometimes. She wants to put him at ease. She doesn’t know how. 

 

So she asks him questions. Simple questions to distract. Easy questions so that she can learn more from him. Grey Worm doesn’t like to talk; it is obvious. He always seems wary that whatever he opens his mouth to say will be used against him. Missandei understands. The more the masters know, the more they have to hurt you with. But she will never hurt him.  

 

His second-in-command is Red Rat, she learns. Sometimes, he seeks her out to ask about provisions for the men in his quadrant and the schedule of the queen’s guard and other things Missandei never thought she would be questioned about. He asks for advice as well, about what to expect for the men on the boats when they make their way to Westeros. 

 

Missandei tentatively shares that she knows there will be sickness and she knows a few simple remedies that might help many. Master Krasnys would often entertain guests that complained of shits from the choppy waters. 

 

“Have them drink tea with chamomile flowers. They’re sold in market by the port. When you all board the boats, face the horizon.” 

 

Missandei remembers the first time she traveled on a boat- away from her homeland to a life collared and controlled. She and one of the other girls had thrown up so often that the captain threatened to throw them both into the sea. She does not throw up now.

 

She is surprised when they finally leave Mereen and she sees that her advice has been taken. Every Unsullied as far as her eye can see faces the horizon onboard. Grey Worm comes to her personally to thank her. She tells him his common tongue is developing extremely quickly. She suspects he also has a head for languages. He tells her that he’s been at markets on patrol and all of the different dialects hurt his head sometimes. 

 

Missandei places the back of her hand to his forehead, gentle and discerning. 

 

“You feel fine.” she teases. 

 

Grey Worm looks at her, inscrutable and quiet as ever. Missandei clears her throat and fidgets. She has no idea what it means when he looks at her like that. Slowly, she notices the edge of a smirk on his lips turning into a genuine smile.

 

Missandei can’t help smiling back.

 

“Of course I do, Missandei hin Naath. I drank the tea.”   

 

-

  
  


Dragonstone is nothing like Mereen. It is nothing like Astapor or Yunkai or Qarth, and not just because it is the coldest place she’s ever been. Dragonstone aches with magic. She is no grandmaester or priestess of fire but Missandei is wise enough to listen to her skin when the beat of wings makes hairs raise on her arms and the sky cracks with thunder. She looks up at the sky through the great window of Dragonstone’s library that men carved into the glittering mountainside and wonders how many dragons lived here  _ Before _ . How many great beasts even larger than Rhaegon beat their wings against the sand here? Missandei knows she should probably be afraid of them- maybe she was once- but... 

 

_ but a dragon cannot be caged.  _

 

She likes that, the idea of being so large that no one person could leash her. It must be a marvelous existence. Missandei picks up another volume from the gargantuan table that occupies the center of the room. She’s been reading about House Targaryen- and that itself is something she relishes. Missandei can read whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Not only that, but she may request any title from any land and her majesty will see it delivered. Missandei has never dreamed of such a thing. She remembers being small, knowing only her first four languages, and sneaking to read over her first mistress’ shoulder- a book about linens of all things. This book is about lineage. Missandei is reading about the first Targaryens, and not just them. The great Westerosi families are all expounded upon. There is a definite bias, she notices. Depending upon the author, the Northmen are either beastly people with low cunning or the most courageous and honourable folk in the seven kingdoms of the west. Every victor wants his name to be a cherished thing and his visage chiselled in stone for his descendants to boast over. They all want to be greater than gods. Some pages even make Missandei scoff to herself. 

 

The writer of this tome is a famed maester from a stormy land in the west that uses flowery language to describe wars that thousands must have perished in. She wonders who would have cut off his head first if he described them in any other way. Nobles are predictable. There is actually a story about a “Lann the Clever” that supposedly stole a handful of gold from the sun itself to brighten his hair. There are a lot of stories like that, stories about how the Godsgrief line named all of their firstborn sons Durran for one thousand years of reign or how a simple wrestling match awarded House Stark the entirety of Bear Island. Sometimes Missandei struggles to parse fact from fiction. She fills up with so many questions and gets so frustrated that Missandei actually puts the volume aside and goes to track down Lord Tyrion. 

 

He is drinking on the cliffside when she finds him. 

 

“Did your ancestor really live to the age of three hundred twelve?” She knows she sounds flustered, but Missandei cannot find any differing accounts.  _ How _ is anything widely agreed upon if the truth is hidden in overly embellished writing or completely unacknowledged within the historical records?! 

 

“Even writers that dismiss the more outlandish accounts of Sir Lann the Clever seem to agree that he lived an unnaturally long life! Was this- was it the work of magic?” 

 

Years ago, Missandei would have dismissed the idea as nonsense. How could there be magic in a world where she slept by her master’s feet every night and woke only to kneel at them again in the mornings. How can magic have passed over her in her slave chambers at only seven years old, where she was sometimes bent over and whipped like a misbehaving dog?

 

She’s wiser now, of course. Tyrion blinks at her. 

 

“My Gods. I believe those are the most of your own words I’ve ever heard from your mouth.” 

 

Missandei looks at the floor instinctively, chastised even as she knows she shouldn’t be. Speak only when you are spoken to- that has always been the rule. Exist only when your existence is a useful thing. It is not the rule anymore. Free people choose when to speak and when to shrink. There are not the same consequences to a loose tongue here. Missandei squares her shoulders and looks at him again. 

 

“Do you have an answer, ser?” 

 

He smiles at her, too friendly as always.

 

“Well,” He begins to pace the onyx pathway. She knows the Hand comes here in the lower steps to the Great Caves to think; he is often too wary of the open air and rocky beach. She knows this because she is observant. Slaves have a habit of seeing everything, she thinks, not at all bitter. That is how one survives. 

 

“The first thing you should know is that people with the name Lannister tend to lie more often than they breathe.” 

 

“...but your last name is Lannister.” 

 

Tyrion smiles at her sunnily. 

 

“I say that only to preface what I’m about to tell you, as I can only give the story to you as it was given to me- by a Lannister maester.” 

 

He pats the step beside him graciously and Missandei sits beside him on the cold, smooth stone. Her boots are thin, not enough to keep out the cold winds entirely. She ignores the discomfort, twitching her toes when they threaten to numb. She will endure to listen. One of Missandei’s secrets is that she loves stories. 

 

“Long ago, my however many greats-grandfather Lann the Clever lived in the time before there were only seven kingdoms or seven gods. He preceded the Andals and Old Valyria if you can believe it. Lann the Clever lived in the Age of Heroes, and if my old maester is to be believed- was poor as  _ dirt _ .” 

 

“Poor as dirt.” Missandei tries this phrase out. It feels odd to use. There are many riches to be found in the earth. The dirt gives harvest, when tilled and sowed properly. She frowns. “How can dirt be very poor?” 

 

“Ah. Forgive me. It’s a turn of phrase in the common tongue.”

 

“I understand. It is nonsensical. But then- most turns of phrases are.” She admits. In Ghiscalyrian there is a phrase that translates to the breath of dogs being pleasant only in winter. 

 

“Too right. Anyway, Lann the Clever was quite the beggar, always scrounging for coin where he could find it and swindling good, honourable men out of their good, honourable money. He was supposedly a vain and fertile man as well, which I’ve no reason to doubt considering the amount of cousins I’ve met in my lifetime. Our castlekeep near Lannisport is his doing. He didn’t build it with his bare hands like a hardy Northman or win the keep from it’s previous owner like some bullheaded fighter from the Stormlands. In true Lannister fashion, my ancestor tricked his way into ownership of Casterly Rock.” 

 

Missandei’s brow furrows again. She is intrigued.

 

“How does one man  _ trick  _ himself into Lordship? Did the previous lord have no army? How were the guards and maids and-”

 

“Ah!” Tyrion gasps, eyes glittering. She has never seen him so happy without a cup of wine in his hand. “Funny you should speak of maids! You see in my family- we tell a different story of Lann the Clever’s acquisition of the ancestral Casterly hall.” 

 

“You see, Lann had worked his way into the house of Lord Casterly by way of servitude. Whether guarding or smithing or scrubbing the kitchen floor as a scullery boy- it matters not. The daughter of Lord Casterly fell into his very poor arms and opened her very rich legs.”

 

“You mean to say they fell in love.” 

 

Tyrion shrugs. 

 

“Who’s to say? Love or not, what’s known to us is that the young Lady Casterly suddenly found herself round-bellied and in need of a husband. The Lord of Casterly Rock had no choice but to marry them- and no choice but to hand over his lands to his daughter’s husband on his deathbed. He’d had no surviving sons, thanks to someone.”   

 

Missandei’s mind turns, wondering if the Lann the Clever had hunted down his new father’s sons like wild boars.

 

“And what of his age?” she presses.

 

“Ah, well it’s said after the acquisition of Casterly Rock, Lann had only the finest meals and healers and warriors brought to his keep. He certainly did not live to be three hundred anything, but perhaps one hundred and some, due to his vanity and the money thrown at preserving his own wicked life.”

 

One hundred. It is unfathomable to Missandei, who had often thought she would not live to see her eighteenth summer when she was younger. 

 

“A tip, my dear: take any information from the Age of Heroes with a grain of salt.” 

 

Missandei nods, standing and ready to depart. The sun is setting and the winds are picking up.

 

Before she leaves, she turns to his brooding form and tells the Lord Tyrion he has a gift for stories. That seems to please him, and though they often disagree on courtly matters, she is happy it pleases him. The walk back to the castle seems longer in the wind. She can taste the salt of the sea and feel the sand grazing her cheeks. She should’ve donned a cloak. 

 

Her skin is numb by the time she makes it back to the familiar hall that houses her new room. Her very  _ own  _ room. She bites her lip and makes a decision. 

 

Grey Worm is not far from her. Missandei was suspicious of matchmaking when the queen airily told her they’d be posted near each other unless that was a problem. 

 

“It’s for your safety, of course.” 

 

Missandei had kept her mouth shut. 

 

She knocks even though he never keeps the door closed. It is strange how they are opposites in so many ways. Missandei loves her room- loves to have a place of her own that she can control and fit and nest in without purview. Grey Worm has told her before that he hates it, would rather sleep with his soldiers in the barracks. 

 

There is too much space, he thinks. Too much space and too many things he does not need to do his job. The ornate fireplace and the embroidered bedcovers and meals served on silver all remind him of decadence at the expense of others.  

 

“Missandei.” he greets her from the floor. He’s on his hands, holding up the whole of his body with the strength of his arms, pressing close to the floor and then pushing himself up again until he sees her. Grey Worm rights himself and she would think him unaffected but for the sheen on his forehead. 

 

“Please be more careful,” she chides him because he is not wearing a shirt and her eyes are drawn to his abdomen. The scar is prominent in her eyes- perhaps because she remembers pouring milk of the poppy into his mouth and sitting by his body while Grey Worm shivered and fought infection.

 

He blinks at her in that way of his. Curious. Gentler than he ever seems around others. It makes Missandei feel forward and nervous and more aware of herself than she usually is. She presses her hands flat against her thighs, an anxious tic begotten from many years of training against fidgeting. 

 

“I only mean- I don’t wish to see you hurt again.” She bites her lip. Grey Worm stands carefully and she watches his face instead of the way the scar on his abdomen stretches. 

 

“The wound is closed. It will not open again. I am not hurt, Missandei.” The way he says her name makes her forget herself sometimes. She swallows and nods. 

 

“Your soldiers have been coming to see me more.” she says and her feet are carrying her closer. He lets her, even relaxing his stance so that he’s not so centered for defense. For Grey Worm, this is tantamount to holding his arms open for her. Missandei looks at him, too reverently probably. Too ensnared.

 

She understands now, all of those long poems about lovers that have always seemed so selfish. She covets this- him opening for her. Gentle with her. They are so close. The way his index finger brushes against the back of her hand makes her breath catch. 

 

“I will tell them not to bother you, Missandei hin Naath.” 

 

He likes to call her that. Titles have never been for the enslaved. In his eyes, she is titled. Missandei closes her eyes for a moment. Looking at him makes her feel- makes her  _ feel _ . 

 

“Don’t.” she surprises both of them. “It’s alright. I like- they are good men and I like that I’m. That they know. To.” 

 

She doesn’t have the words. 

 

That is a funny thing. She knows nineteen languages and still, when she is around him, she doesn’t have the words. 

 

He doesn’t try to help her, but he does finally take her hand. Carefully. Missandei can see the way both of them are breathing heavily. She likes it that she’s not the only one so affected. 

 

“Ok.” Grey Worm says in the same monotone. He is trying for control. It makes her smile. “I will not tell them, then.” 

 

“Your hand is cold.” he points out. 

 

“I was with Lord Tyrion just now. He was telling me stories of his forefather that lied his way into wealth and power.”

 

Grey Worm rolls his eyes and says in Low Valyrian that he is not surprised. He is, after all, related to Lord Tyrion. It makes Missandei snort in an ungainly way. The sort of sound a young slavegirl would make and be punished for in the house she grew up in. But there is no one to punish her here. And best of all, Grey Worm smiles when she laughs. 

 

It transforms him, makes Missandei feel like a religious fanatic. She supposes a Lord of Light must exist if one fleeting expression can bring her such peace. Missandei has the wild thought that the Unsullied may have hidden talents but a happy Grey Worm may be their greatest secret weapon. A stupid and lovesick thought. Missandei does not regret thinking it, though. 

 

“Have you eaten yet?” 

 

Grey Worm manages to look guilty without making a face at all. She sighs. 

 

“I have something for you.” Missandei reaches underneath her tunic to pull out the pouch full with plum bread and cheese she sequestered from this afternoon’s lunch with the queen. She looks in his eyes as she puts the food into his hands and Missandei marvels at being able to see him so open. He is inspecting the different cheeses curiously and sniffs a thick slice of emmental before sampling it. 

 

Missandei bites her lip. 

 

His expression is soft and surprised before he can shape it into anything else. She laughs. He is... cute. 

 

That night, they talk about all of the books in the great library and the salt that permeates every breath they breathe on this island. They talk about magic (Grey Worm does not like sorcery) and they talk of dragons (Missandei confesses her love for them) all while they eat sweet bread and cheese together in his bed. Grey Worm doesn’t try to take off her clothes, but when she is drowsy and struggling to keep her head up, he asks her to stay. She stays.

 

When she wakes in the morning, there is space between them in the bed, but he is holding her hand. She yawns and looks down to wear his fingers are carefully laced through hers and then smiles so wide that her gaze becomes a joyful squint. Grey Worm doesn’t speak, but his other hand comes up to touch her cheek. He seems in awe. Of what, Missandei wonders. She isn’t presentable yet, really. 

 

“Thank you, Missandei.” he says finally and she flushes. She wants to ask ‘for what’. She doesn’t. 

 

“You are welcome.” she says and kisses the wrist of the hand that’s still cupping her cheek. 

 

A week later, he tells her for the first time, how he feels. He tells her he avoids her sometimes because he is scared. He’s been scared ever since they kissed- every time she comes around. 

 

“I was bravest, always.” he tells her and she knows it to be true. She’s seen him in battle. There is a reason the men  _ chose  _ him to lead. 

 

She can’t imagine what it’s like. To have lived without ever having fear, she can’t imagine that. Fear for love. Fear for his life. If your life is worth nothing, there is no reason to fear dying. It is something the masters made sure to take from him. His own fear. It makes Missandei angry and breaks her heart all at once. 

 

“Now I have fear.” he says and Missandei wants to cover him in herself. She wants to make herself big and fearless and able to breathe fire so that she can kill the masters all over again. 

 

“I do, too.” she admits.

 

Missandei has always been smart; smart has always meant staying detached. Staying perfect. An object in the room drawing the least amount of attention possible, until her master decided he specifically wanted her on display. Frozen. Empty. That was the way to stay alive. Objects have no desires.

 

Missandei is not an object. 

 

She opens the laces on her top. She has taken to wearing long leather tunics on the island, not only because of the weather, but because she likes that she can choose what to cover and when to cover it. She pushes down her pants. 

 

Grey Worm looks at her face. He’s searching for something in her eyes and he looks- lost. It’s the most vulnerable he’s ever seemed. When they kiss, she feels the same twist in her heart that she did the last time. It seems impatient to unite with his- to literally jump out of her chest and into his. It would be safe there, she thinks. 

 

_ I am with you _ , she wants to say.  _ We are real. _

 

When she takes off his clothes, she’s careful. Gentle. She never wants him to feel a brutal touch again.  

 

His bed is more barren than hers. It’s how he likes it. She likes it just fine too when he stretches out over her. He touches her hair, her eyelids, her mouth. Kisses her and kisses her and kisses her everywhere with a reverence Missandei never thought could be turned in her direction. Tears form in the corners of her eyes. 

 

He gets to her feet and she can feel his thumb ghosting across the old scars over her arches. He frowns in confusion. 

 

“Master Krasnys” she explains breathlessly. She is more interested in what they’re doing, but even though she squirms, he waits. 

 

“There was nowhere else on my body he could mark up. I wouldn’t be presentable. The girls- our feet were whipped instead.” 

 

Grey Worm’s eyes go dead. He closes them and she hates it. Missandei pulls him down, kissing his eyelids. 

 

“We are here now.” she says. “Be with me here now.” 

 

She kisses him until he kisses her back and she can taste the apology in his mouth. He kisses down her body again and his hands press everywhere. She likes the weight of them. She likes the  _ presence  _ of him. Missandei closes her eyes. She has no idea where he learned to touch her like this. 

 

No idea. 

 

His mouth moves further down, wet and searching.

 

Missandei gasps. 

  
  


-

  
  


She does  _ not  _ want to go to the North, but the queen insists. 

 

“I need you by my side, my friend.” she tells Missandei even though she has not complained. She only nods stiffly and says “of course, your Majesty”. Daenerys sighs and looks at her, calculating and tired as she often is when they are alone these days. 

 

“I know you don’t want to go.” 

 

Missandei says nothing. 

 

“If I didn’t need you, you could remain here in that great library that you love so much, but I need to present a united,  _ strong  _ front. You have always been a part of that image for me, Missandei. I need you standing in front of the Northern lords with me just as I need Tyrion and Varys.” 

 

Missandei has never considered herself so important and isn’t sure she’s flattered at the idea of being so. She sighs. 

 

“Alright.” 

 

Daenerys smiles victoriously. 

 

“Cheer up! You’ll be treading where no other Naathi woman, man, or child has ever been. The stories you’ll be able to write-” 

 

Missandei sighs again but gives her a fond look. She would go anyway without question, but the queen is trying to make her  _ feel  _ better. It is such a funny notion. 

 

“Besides.” Dany says, switching tactics. “Grey Worm will be there. Close by.” 

 

Missandei tries not to visibly brighten at that. She must fail from the look of smug triumph that passes over the queen’s face. 

 

“That is a good idea, your majesty. Travelling is dangerous for any queen- and you are not just any queen. Grey Worm is loyal and smart.” 

 

Daenerys grins. 

 

“Oh, go on. Talk more of Ser Grey Worm’s excellent qualities.” 

 

Missandei bites her lip so that she isn’t quite giggling about this. 

 

“He is too serious and at the same time- funnier than you think.” Missandei thinks of the way he likes to lace their fingers together at night. “And- sweet.” 

 

She doesn’t elaborate. Missandei doesn’t like the idea of giving up such a vulnerable piece of him. He shares so much with her that he doesn’t with others- not even his own men. She treasures all that he gives. The queen smiles gently at her, wistfully. She is probably thinking of the man she left behind in Mereen. The fighter. 

 

Missandei does not envy a throne that costs love.

  
  


\- 

 

. 

Winterfell is  _ untenable _ . That is, at least, in Grey Worm’s opinion. Missandei struggles not to laugh when she sees his face all screwed up in deep irritation every time another flurry of snow falls in the night. He bundles up in the same amount of furs that Missandei does but he moves quicker. Of everyone, she thinks he outwardly adapts the most. Still, he obviously hates the weather. 

 

She is sympathetic. Winterfell is- she didn’t know it could be this cold  _ anywhere _ . They had arrived on dragonback, in whipping winds that had Missandei feeling stung and stunned. She only regains feeling in her face when they enter the keep. Grey Worm is not as awed as her, she can tell. Even though Missandei slips into her mask of regal indifference as she introduces the queen to the Lady Sansa Stark and her siblings, she is secretly cataloguing everything. 

 

The Starks, like all the people here wear heavy dress. Everything is fur or leather or thick wool. Beards are long enough to be braided. They pin thick brooches carved with fierce mascots onto their cloaks and tunics. The shields of their soldiers all sport the same giant wolfshead that Missandei saw on Jon Snow’s tunic. All of them wear black and grey. There is no color here. The only shine here comes from the snow and the silver of their swords. 

 

The queen stands out among them in her white. She looks at home in the snow here- with her white fur gown and her silver hair, she looks as if she could step into the woods of this land and disappear. 

 

Missandei is wearing white too, because they must appear as a united front, but there is a dagger that Grey Worm gave her sitting at her hip in plain sight. The belt that holds her dress together also holds it. She does not know the first thing about wielding it really, but he gave it to her so she keeps it. 

 

“Everything is so different here.” she says that night in her chambers. He has snuck into her room. Missandei had asked him if he didn’t want the Northerners to know about them and Grey Worm revealed that he didn’t trust them not to take advantage of the knowledge that she is precious to him. 

 

That made her knees weak.

 

“There is no color here. These people are a kind of dead.” he says grumpily and she laughs but admits she was thinking the same earlier. Their customs are, indeed, strange. The people here seem to prefer stews and heavy meats, she noticed at their dinner. They are also  _ loud  _ at meals. Grey Worm had left Red Rat to guard the queen during the meal while he ‘patrolled’ with two of his men. 

 

Missandei doesn’t doubt that he actually went on patrol, but she knows he took advantage of the opportunity to be away from the yelling and singing. The Dothraki warriors with them seemed to enjoy it, though they also criticized the foods for their lack of flavor. Missandei had scrounged up bread and lamprey pie for Grey Worm to eat in their room.

 

They are on her new bed together now, naked and closer than they sleep. Grey Worm has stuffed one of the blankets from the bed in front of the door to keep any air from coming through the crack underneath. Smart. 

 

“I can never get warm.” Missandei says, shivering. Her body has been in revolt ever since they landed. He moves closer to her and she tangles her legs in his. Every day she marvels that he lets her so close.  

 

“I like their training grounds.” he admits. “I like that they train so close to the grounds. Good for protection. Good for soldiers to talk to the woman they die for.” 

 

She closes her eyes and noses at the hollow of his throat. He smells like smoke. Underneath that he smells like himself, which she loves. Grey Worm jerks. She pulls back and searches his eyes worriedly. 

 

“What happened.” 

 

He makes a sound she knows means that he is keeping down a laugh and says “your nose is cold.” 

 

Missandei laughs and pointedly sticks her nose right back where it was, gratified when she hears more of that laugh come out. She has only ever heard him laugh once before, when talking with Red Rat about something. Missandei vows to herself that she will make him laugh whenever she can. 

 

It is out of pure selfishness. She must hear that sound again. 

 

“I like it here.” Missandei tells him when they’re alone by the great bleeding tree that the Northerners worship. Grey Worm is so immediately confused that a tiny frown dips between his brows and his mouth forms an unconscious pout. She laughs. 

 

“Why?” 

 

She looks at the tree, at the sad eyes carved in the white wood. Missandei shrugs, conscious of his gaze. The way he looks at her- it is so different from every other man. When she talks about nothing, about nonsense- Grey Worm looks at her like she is giving battle plans. Always serious. Always processing. 

 

“Nothing is- look at the way they build things. You see?” She points to the top of the tallest turret in the keep. It stands grey and sturdy against the cold. “It’s not beautiful. They don’t need it for beauty. They don’t love it for beauty.” 

 

Grey Worm tilts his head. He’s thinking. 

 

“When you’re here, you do not have to be beautiful” he realizes. Missandei buries her face into the neck of her thick dress, shy. Of course he cut to the core of what she was thinking in seven words. 

 

He doesn’t say anything for a while but Missandei doesn’t feel judged. She knows him too well for that now. He is thinking. He never says anything before thinking and he never says what he thinks she will want to hear. 

 

“The people that look at you this way- the masters that dressed your body before- they are all wrong.” His brow is furrowed, not in anger, but in determination. “They see what they desire in you. They don’t see  _ you _ .” 

 

It’s Missandei’s turn to be quiet. She reaches for his hand the same way he reaches for hers every night. Sometimes, he reminds her that she is a person. Missandei inhales and squeezes tight. She is a person. 

 

Grey Worm pretends he does not see her crying, but he holds onto her firmly and stands to shield her from any onlookers. Missandei loves him. 

 

Later, he produces a book that he procured from the maester of this keep. Missandei had meant to seek him out herself, but she’s been busy with the queen for days, strategizing and going over theories about how to defeat the dead that walk the night. 

 

“ _ The Tale of Elennei: Protector of the Storm Winds _ ” she reads.

 

“You left your books on Dragonstone. You miss them. There are books here, too.” he explains, concise. As if this was only practical. As if he hadn’t spent a good portion of his day tracking down something she would love. 

 

They are hidden in an alcove together. Missandei is able to grab his mitten with hers and kiss his cheek. They are careful in public view. Missandei is an advisor to the queen and he is the head of her great army. They are meant to be infallible. Missandei tucks the book inside her dress. 

 

Later, after the Starks have thrown another feast and the queen has dined with them and persuaded another chunk of the Northerners to believe in their cause, Grey Worm reads to her. After she’s sweaty and tired out from him working her over, she pulls out the book and hands it to him. 

 

She makes a pouty face and he indulges with a sigh. Missandei lays her head on his bare sternum while he works his way through the first few pages. It’s slow-going; they haven’t had written lessons in a while, but the sound of his voice is a balm to her.

 

“I love you.” she says quietly, during a pause in his reciting. She is falling asleep. A part of her is awake- aware of what she’s said. 

 

For once, Missandei doesn’t panic. Why should she? It is a known truth. 

 

Grey Worm’s response is what stuns her. 

 

He puts the book down carefully, making sure to keep his page, and sits up to take her face into his hands. He looks serious. He always looks serious when he confesses emotion. 

 

“You,” he says “remind me to live. I trust no one else.” 

 

Missandei’s brows crumple. 

 

“You are my heart.” Grey Worm continues matter-of-factly. He says everything so steadily. So sure. 

 

She closes her eyes. 

 

“Good.” 

 

He nods, then lets her put her head back down on his thighs as he reaches for the book again. His movements are precise. He has said what he needed to say. Her serious, beautiful, funny love.   

 

Missandei can’t keep from beaming. 

 

She does not have to. 


End file.
